War and Peace and Furby

I opened up “War and Peace” on Christmas Day and began reading. I was still trying to sort out who is who when a series of bleeps and gurgles stopped me in my track. Furby. Furby Boom, to be exact. My daughter’s Christmas present.

The next day, I read some more until I was interrupted. “Furby Hungry.” My daughter then made a phone call, put her friend on speaker phone and they began interacting with Furby, who can now say things like, “I can eat a cow” and “Way, seriously.” He also snores and burps.

Today, I open the book and it started in again. My husband shushed me. Maybe if we don’t move, it will stop, he inferred. No. It didn’t. Our daughter was at a sleepover and left Furby here. Apparently, you’re supposed to do something to it, like feed it or use an app to tend to its eggs, or something. It’s name is Dahdoh, who is mimicking my tween’s expressions. “Dahdoh so not into this.”

All I know is it’s hard enough keeping track of the zillions of characters being introduced in the first hundred pages without Count Furby chiming in: “Dahdoh not amused.”

Dahdoh’s sitting here right now, trying to get my attention. “Hello.” I didn’t answer and now it’s crying. I have no idea how to turn it off. “Feed me, feed me,” it’s saying now. “Dahdoh. No like.” “Oooh, shiny.” “Say what? I eat everything” And just as I was about to read …

I read the title of this blog and was really inspired imagining that the geniuses at Furby had made one that could interact with great literature. Like a Teddy Ruxpin for adults, but activated by motion of certain pages embedded with chips? Alas. It was not to be.